When George W. Bush first sent American troops to Afghanistan, it was to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attack on the World Trade Center. Unable to find him, we kept increasing the size of our military in the country, declaring now our mission was to oust the Taliban that governed by a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran, and in its place establish an American-style, freely elected, secular government.

Afghanistan always had been and is now a fiercely Islamic country, and an Islamic government is what they want. Probably most Afghans would prefer a less harsh religious government than that of the Taliban, but they will never accept a secular one.

Religion aside, Afghanistan has never been a cohesive nation. There are few roads, and most Afghans are illiterate and live in scattered villages, each with a headman who runs the village under warlords who rule a collection of villages.

It is in this hostile environment we imagined we could establish a secular democracy. We put in place an educated Muslim, Hamid Karzai, and declared him temporary president pending free elections. In 2004 in an election no one but us took seriously, he was confirmed in office, but had no actual control of anything outside of the few large population centers we controlled.

Last year he came up for “re-election.” In the election, only a small fraction of Afghans cast bvallots, and government officials were appointed to man the polling places. The resulting ballot-box-stuffing and tossing out of opposition votes made what was once the standard practice in Texas and Chicago pale by comparison. The neutral observer at each polling place declared the election fraudulent, and even we had difficulty pretending it wasn’t. For several months our government made it known to Karzai that perhaps he should share power with his opponent, but Karzai knew we had no choice but accept him, so he simply said “No.”

Today our free, secular, democratically elected government is considered the second most corrupt government in the world after Somalia; Karzai and his relatives are enriching themselves in the drug trade. After we recognized Karzai as the official president of Afghanistan, he immediately altered the constitution we had prepared for him, making Islamic Sharia law legal. Use of it by the Taliban was one of the things we cited to justify taking power. We have no way of knowing how many women are being killed under the Sharia for sex offenses, how many young girls have been murdered by fathers and brothers. Virtually all crimes are punishable by losing anything from a finger to your head; few leave a Sharia court with the same number of body parts as when they entered.

Our government and most Americans sincerely believed that people everywhere would welcome a U.S.-style democracy, and if our military provided them the opportunity, they would be thankful. However, when put to the test in Iraq and Afghanistan, it turns out to be a false belief. Unfortunately, instead of saying, “OK, don’t say we didn’t give you a chance” and come home, we decided to make them accept a secular democracy whether they wanted it or not.

Let’s not mince words; we have attempted to force it down their throats at the cost to the United States of billions upon billions of dollars and great loss of American lives. The other day President Obama admitted that the Afghan army we have been training and supplying with modern weapons is “unreliable.” He means that the Afghan army, like the rest of the people, wants the country ruled by an Islamic government.

It’s no secret that many of the weapons we give the Afghan army end up sold to the Taliban. As in Iraq, to avoid using additional American soldiers, the U.S. spends hundreds of millions to pay security companies to help keep the peace. It’s also no secret that they use the proceeds to pay off the Taliban not to attack too often, or, in some cases, stage attacks to demonstrate that the security contractors need to hire more men at higher prices. Knowledge of this is so widespread that Obama and the military must cover their ears and eyes.

Although it has long been obvious the Afghans will not accept a secular government, for nine years we have tried to give them one. It’s past the time to stop wasting the lives of young American soldiers trying to do the impossible. Polls show that the majority of Americans rightly believe when we depart, the government we established will be crushed and we’ll leave only chaos behind.

No one will consider the United States has demonstrated weakness by leaving; we will still be the most powerful nation on earth. Our enemies may claim we have been defeated, but all other nations will breath a sigh of relief. Their economies rest, in good measure, on the health of ours and they will feel it is more secure when we stop spending so many billions of dollars on a war we cannot win.

The other day, Gen. David Petraeus stated it may not be possible to leave Afghanistan in 2011, that we may need to keep American troop for additional years. As long as President Obama is in office we will never leave, we will continue to sacrifice the lives of young soldiers until Americans raise a loud enough voice that politicians realize they will be voted out of office if they don’t do what the Russians were wise enough to do after six years - bring our army home.